Forest Labs says it won proxy fight with Icahn

Forest Laboratories Inc. said Thursday it won a proxy fight with billionaire investor Carl Icahn, as shareholders elected all of the company’s nominees to the board of directors and voted down Icahn’s choices.

Forest said early results of the election indicate its 10 nominees were elected “by a significant margin.”

The company said Chairman and CEO Howard Solomon, ex-Chief Financial Officer Lawrence Olanoff, Nesli Basgoz, Dan Goldwasser, Kenneth Goodman, Lester Salans and Peter Zimetbaum were re-elected. Christopher Coughlin, Gerald Lieberman and Brenton Saunders were elected to their first full terms on the board.

Icahn said he sent an email congratulating Solomon on his victory.

Icahn’s High River L.P. nominated four directors in an effort to win greater control of the drug maker. High River owns a 6.5 percent stake in Forest. It criticized the company for a variety of issues including underwhelming stock performance and management concerns.

In April, the federal government said it might block Solomon from doing business with the federal health programs, which could have forced him to resign. Icahn said Forest never disclosed a plan to handle that possibility. Earlier this month the government ended its proceedings against Solomon.

In 2010, the company paid $313 million to resolve investigations into allegations it gave kickbacks to doctors who prescribed its drugs, promoted its antidepressants for use in children when they were not approved, and distributed another drug that had not been approved. Forest also pleaded guilty to several criminal charges.

Forest makes the depression and anxiety drug Lexapro, the Alzheimer’s disease drug Namenda and the fibromyalgia treatment Savella. Earlier this year it paid $1.2 billion to acquire Clinical Data Inc. and its newly approved depression drug Viibryd. The patents supporting Lexapro will begin to expire in March 2012, opening the drug to competition from cheaper generic versions.

Forest has had three drugs approved this year, and it has said it will buy back more than $1 billion in stock by Sept. 30, 2012.

Shares of Forest fell $1.33, or 3.9 percent, to $33.12 in afternoon trading as the markets slumped.